New York, Texas and Louisiana's Top Rated Local® Contractor

Why You’ll Have To Find A New Place To Live During House Elevation

Like we’ve said many times before, house lifting is a big job…and big jobs take time. There are many factors that determine how long it will take to raise a house, including what it’s made out of (brick or wood), if it has a basement, how high it will be raised, and what the new foundation is going to be built out of. All of this usually takes around two to four months.

That means that you’ll be needing a place to stay for an extended period of time. Be sure to pack everything you’re going to need, because getting into your house is going to be difficult for quite some time.

But wait a second, why can’t you just stay in the house as it’s being lifted? If you’re willing to put up with the inconvenience, why shouldn’t you be allowed to? Well, here are a few reasons why you really can’t stay in your house during the house lifting process.

It’s A Construction Site

Safety should be the number one concern of any contractor, and it certainly is at TurnKey Contractor Solutions. That means not only safety for our own workers, but also for you and your neighbors.

A house lifting site is a fully-involved construction site. Hard hats are required, and only specific people are allowed to do specific jobs. There are people driving backhoes, skid steers, and other types of highly-dangerous equipment. There are workers swinging sledgehammers to take away parts of the old foundation, while others are throwing bricks and wood into the dumpster. A construction site is a dangerous place, and we simply can’t have non-construction people around.

It’s Noisy

You wouldn’t enjoy hanging around a house all that that’s being lifted. There are the diesel vehicles moving dirt, hydraulic jacks, jackhammers, sledgehammers, and people yelling to ensure everyone is safe. It’s just plain loud.

But doesn’t that mean your neighbors will be put off? Maybe a bit. But once they see how well your house survives a flood, they’ll probably be lifting their own home. If they forgive you for the noise house lifting makes, we hope you’ll forgive them when it’s their turn!

You Won’t Have Utilities

From a homeowner’s standpoint, this is probably the biggest reason that they don’t want to live in a house that’s being lifted. In order to lift your home, we have to disconnect all of the utilities for the duration of the lift in order to extend them. Sure, you can probably live without your phone line or cable. But it’s a lot more difficult to go without electricity. That means no heat and no cooling. And even if you could run a generator and get through on that electricity, you’re not going to have any running water. No sinks, no showers, no toilets.

No Stairs

Once we have the utilities disconnected, there’s really not that much of a reason for us to go into the house. We’ll be focused on lifting it the agreed-upon number of feet to get it above base flood elevation, not on hanging out on the porch. What we’re saying is, we don’t need to get into the house, so there’s really no reason to build those new steps until we get closer to the end of the elevation project. Even if you were allowed to live in the house, you simply wouldn’t have access to it for quite a few weeks.

Something Catastrophic Could Go Wrong

To start, let’s just say that we’re fully insured. We’ve raised dozens of houses in Texas, Louisiana, and Long Island, and we haven’t had one fall off the cribbing yet. But that doesn’t mean that something catastrophic couldn’t go wrong. Some freak weather event could pop up and drop 20 inches of water, overflowing the nearby creek and washing the cribbing out from under the house. There could be an earthquake (no matter how unlikely for your part of the country) that shakes the house off its temporary foundation. While we’re talking about a one-in-a-million chance, a person simply can’t be allowed to be in the house while it’s being lifted.

Insurance Won’t Let You

This one is pretty cut-and-dried. For the many reasons we mentioned above, our insurance just won’t let you stay in the house while it’s being lifted. Heck, your insurance probably won’t allow it either. They simply can’t afford to insure you if you put yourself in such a dangerous situation.

So, Where Do You Stay?

Unfortunately, we can’t answer that question for you. You might have to call in a favor with a friend, or stay with your child for a couple months. If insurance is helping you pay for the lifting after a flood, they might pay for temporary housing.

As you can see, we can’t let you stay in your house while it’s being lifted. But we can promise to get it taken care of as efficiently as possible so that you can get your life back in order. Contact us today for a free quote!